Multiple Monitor Setup (Different Sized Monitors)

[schild]

Alright guys. My google-fu sucks. And so does my monitor setup (but for a reason)!

I watch a lot of widescreen video, obviously.

I also play a lot of games.

As such, my monitor setup is as such:
Primary: LG 19" 4:3 1280x1024
Secondary: Dell 22" 16:10 1680x1050

My NVidia 8600GTS has dual-dvi out. Nice. Unfortunately, it's retarded and doesn't play like an ATI does. It has it's own gimped ass control panel and doesn't want to do what I tell it to do. Is there some fucking Magic trick to getting the right resolutions on these things? Right now all I get is 1280x1024 on both monitors.

God help me when I finally get it to shut one monitor down when I'm playing a game. Ugh.

[bhodi]

I tried this but got too frustrated with directx refusing to let me use the second monitor while i play games, so I just have two computers. I have a laptop and docking station next to it that I connect using synergy.

I believe, however, those settings are in the actual desktop control panel, rightclick-on-desktop->properties->settings, select the monitor and change the res.

[schild]

Oh, I want to use my primary monitor for games, so that's a non-issue. More like, I can't set the 22" to the proper resolution. It's as if no one in the world has a use for 2 different aspect ratio monitors except for me.

[bhodi]

I edited. Too quick reply for me. It's not in their dinky control panel, it's in the windows one.

[schild]

Yea, I tried changing it there. It WOULD be there if we were talking ATI cards. No dice on NVidia.

Also, I just tried playing a movie in VLC Player.

Yea, that went well. NO NO NO NO. It just maximizes across both screens.

I fear NVidia has lost this particular portion of the hardware war. Unless there's some obtuse control I can't find.

[bhodi]

Are you sure you don't select dual view, and then that monitor shows up in the windows control panel? I'll just shut up at this point because I don't have dual monitors to test with.

[schild]

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.

Stupid stupid computer. I had this working like 6 years ago with SWG.

I blame SOE.

[schild]

Thought, MAYBE, I didn't have the proper software:

Quadro Current NVIDIA Driver
Windows XP/2000
Version: 83.62
Release Date: February 17, 2006

What? February 17th? 2006? THIS IS WHAT NVIDIA IS PIMPING AS THEIR MULTIPLE DISPLAY SOFTWARE? DOESN'T WORK ON A SINGLE CURRENT CARD.

CHRIST.

[schild]

Ok. So I found the NView shit for my card, was already installed. And..............

No dice. Not a single option even remotely near what I was looking for. I suppose the only option is to buy another 19" LG. Blech. Anger.

[Engels]

Hmm, I have two different resolutions set up on my two monitors that I use. One thing I had to make sure I had was the monitor .inf (or drivers) installed for the monitor that'll have a different rez than the primary one. And here's the kicker; make sure that you have the drivers installed both under the Windows Display config area, and that your Nvidia Control Panel recognizes the monitor by name and that it reflects the same resolution types as you see in your windows display control panel. I can't really visualise it, and I can't do a step by step walk through since I'm running Vista on this machine, but all my troubles stemmed from Windows not knowing the right information about resolutions on my 2nd monitor. Once I got that sorted out, the Nvidia Control Panel cooperated.

[schild]

The NVidia recognized both monitors by name immediately, windows however calls them both Default PNP Monitors. :(:(:( what? Also, finding monitor drivers is like farts in the wind. I just can't smell 'em out.

[bhodi]

Ah, then you just need the ini files.

Dell: http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/product_support/en/monitor_download?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
LG: http://us.lge.com/support/download/search/1000000339_AA_DR_.jhtml

Grab those. Right click My computer->manage->Device Manager->Monitors. Right click your Plug and Play Monitor, update driver, select the ini file they give you. You might have to extract it.

[schild]

Nothing to grab from the LG site. No driver there. The Dell one was actually easy to find.

[Salamok]

nView display mode set to Dualview?  seems like i had this same problem with my 7800 (i run dual monitors at 1920x1200 and 1680x1050, when i 1st set it all up they seemed to be linked to the same resolution but there definately is a setting to unlink them.  If setting the nView Display Mode to Dualview doesn't work then I would try running the display wizard.

[schild]

Display Wizard did nothing, could not find a dualview option.

[Salamok]

God help me when I finally get it to shut one monitor down when I'm playing a game. Ugh.

As far as I am aware the only time you need to shut a monitor down when gaming is if you are running SLI.  The second monitor does create a small amount of load and take up a slice of memory but it is mostly on the 2d engine.  I have a fairly outdated machine (pentium 4 2.8, 1gig, 7800gs, WD Raptor pri drive) and I really haven't run accross a situation where shutting down my 2nd monitor saved the day and magically made something more playable.

[Salamok]

Display Wizard did nothing, could not find a dualview option.

I just updated my driver and the entire nVidia configuration utility changed.  I open the nVidia control panel (telling it I want advanced options).  There is now a section called "set up multiple displays",  There are 3 settings there:

1 - Choose the nView display mode to use:  Set this to Configured independently from each other (Dualview)

2 - Select the displays you would like to use: select LG 19" + Dell 22" (or something like that)

3 - Select the display you want Windows to use as primary:  LG 19"

that should be all.  I can't imagine a card that new does not support Dual indipendent monitors so keep looking.

[Krakrok]

I have 2 24" on a 8600GTS under Vista. I'm pretty sure it let me have different resolutions on each using DualView. I'll have to verify again tomorrow.

[naum]

Is this really that much of a chore in Windows?

[Engels]

It can be, especially if Nvidia Control Panel 'pretends' to know what the 2nd monitor is. The only way to make sure it really does is to find the .inf file for the monitor and make Windows Display load it, so the correct resolutions and refresh rates are reported to the Nvidia Control Panel. That's the main issue. Nvidia will blithely tell you the right name of your monitor, but it will not load the correct 'chart' of adequate display settings for it, so Schild is stuck with the wrong resolutions on his monitor.

[schild]

Salamok, 3 options?

Or Here?

[schild]

Slightly Faster than Dualview.

WHICH ISN'T A GODDAMN OPTION.

[schild]

Ok. What a crock of ass. Dualview is just a fancy renaming of the windows function.

In other words, all I had to do was reboot. However, now I can't put different wallpaper on each monitor.

Yea, I'm picky.

[schild]

Alright. All fixed. Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Thank god.

[Salamok]

It can be, especially if Nvidia Control Panel 'pretends' to know what the 2nd monitor is. The only way to make sure it really does is to find the .inf file for the monitor and make Windows Display load it, so the correct resolutions and refresh rates are reported to the Nvidia Control Panel. That's the main issue. Nvidia will blithely tell you the right name of your monitor, but it will not load the correct 'chart' of adequate display settings for it, so Schild is stuck with the wrong resolutions on his monitor.

Doesn't look like it is an issue along those lines.  Looks like either that card or that vid card driver doesn't support independent control.  The Dualview option should be right below the vertical span option.  

[Salamok]

Alright. All fixed. Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Thank god.

gratz

[schild]

ding, level 2 monitor setup

Video and games even work now.

Shockingly, for the first time (though I joke about it), a reboot fixed everything.

[Trippy]

Is this really that much of a chore in Windows?

It's not if you reboot. If you hook up a second monitor without rebooting then XP's built-in DualView feature doesn't kick in but the NVIDIA drivers will see the second monitor but it won't let you set the resolutions independently.

[Engels]

Must be an XP thing. In Vista, I could just hot-plug in my 2nd, non-widescreen monitor and it'd be recognized right away and allow a resolution change through the Nvidia console. Don't get me wrong, if its a Vista thing, it'll be the first thing in Vista I can genuinely say is better than XP.

[Trippy]

You can change the resolution if you don't reboot, you just can't set each monitor's resolution independently. I.e. both monitors have to use the same resolution.